2 years ago
Wednesday, October 9
Monday, October 7
Winding down and clearing up.
Last week we had just two visits to the allotment. It's that time of year when things don't really need tackling with the same degree of urgency. The weather also dictates what we can and can't do. Although we need to be getting on with some digging the weather hasn't been helpful with rain threatening on most days. Soon the beds will transform, after being dry and parched, to wet and muddy and maybe from there become hard like concrete - such is our soil. The window of opportunity for perfectly workable soil is often short, but last week's weather wasn't really conducive to gardening and we had other things which we either had to, or wanted to do.
Umbrella to hand, we risked an afternoon visit to The Yorkshire Wildlife Park, we decided if nothing else we could have lunch there and come home. Fortunately the rain held off, although the weather had maybe deterred many visitors so it was fairly quiet except for the roar of the lions.
Autumn has well and truly taken a grip on things, as the area under our greengage trees will testify. I have the feeling that before long the trees will be totally bare.
One night last week the temperature dropped to 1.6C (34.9F), low enough for a touch of ground frost. It's rather early for temperatures to drop so low and the courgettes had suffered. I managed to harvest a few baby fruits bit I'm guessing that will be our lot.
On the other hand I had expected to find blackened dahlia plants, but they had survived, and I gathered enough unspoiled blooms to take home along with a few cosmos.
The climbing beans had come to the end of their productive life, and we also needed to get the canes undercover for some protection, so the bean beds were cleared and the frames taken down.
We also cleared the beds containing sweet corn. The sweet corn harvest has been very disappointing. Some cobs formed but when we cooked a couple we found that the kernels were tasteless. We are guessing that the lack of sunshine meant the cobs didn't ripen correctly.
One thing often has a knock on effect. We use the allotment greenhouse as a storage area during winter and so in order to store the bean canes we needed to clear the tomatoes from the greenhouse.
By the way, we had an email from Levington's which, as expected, informed us that no toxicity was found by the bioassay testing of our compost sample. They take this to mean no herbicide contamination is present but our experiences don't correlate with this. Whatever the reasons for our tomato failure I guess that we've reached an impasse. Not a very satisfactory outcome however, we won't be using compost that incorporates green waste in the future. Something affected our tomatoes and if not a herbicide what was it?
Tomatoes have been removed from plants outside as well as in both greenhouses and these are ripening steadily outside under cover of a porch roof. I'm using them as needed in cooking.
There is still some life on the plot. Bees and hoverflies are browsing the self sown sunflowers.
As we finish the last of the onions planted in September 2018, the ones planted a couple of weeks ago are starting to shoot.
Obviously a priority is to harvest anything that is available.
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| 30 September 2019 |
You may notice, in our harvest box is another Crown Prince squash that I missed when supposedly harvesting the lot the previous week. We also found a few pears that we had missed and some small onions that, Martyn found when digging over one of last year's onion beds. They are only small but will be OK for using in coleslaw.
The damp conditions are not suiting the raspberries ,which are turning brown or soft and mushy, but we managed to salvage a handful, along with some blackberries.
The late sown Safari dwarf French beans have proved their worth and quite a few have been frozen.
We picked more apples, this time the varieties were Fiesta and, what we think are, Golden Delicious.
A bonus was finding a few quince. We thought we'd had a total quince crop failure but Martyn found a few. There weren't many but they have been stewed with some of our plentiful supply of apples.
We've started digging carrots which would win prizes in a wonkiest carrot competition. They may not be pretty but they put shop bought carrots to shame when it comes to flavour.
The last cauliflower of the week had been found by slugs, who are no doubt thriving in the damp conditions. Although part of the curd had been spoiled, we will be having the rest.
I just hope my hardy annuals seedling avoid their rasping mouths. I love wildlife but I can't find a place in my heart for slugs ... sorry!
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| 5 October |
A video of our end od September plot tour is posted here
If you want to view more of my owl photos I've posted another slideshow on Youtube
Martyn has also posted videos of the leopard and polar bears at Yorkshire Wildlife Park on our YouTube channel which is here. If you're interested there are also some of last week's train videos too.
Martyn has also posted videos of the leopard and polar bears at Yorkshire Wildlife Park on our YouTube channel which is here. If you're interested there are also some of last week's train videos too.
Wednesday, October 2
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